Ride with Clayton County school bus driver James Ojeda’s and you can almost hear a pin drop.
The three dozen West Clayton Elementary School students on board are engrossed in books. Not homework, either. They’re reading for fun. And it all stems from a literacy program Ojeda started a decade ago, implementing it on his routes at three schools over the years.
“I stress to them that the school bus is an extension of the classroom,” said Ojeda, who awards prizes and attends end-of-the-year reading awards programs to cheer on the students. “Your day does not end until you leave the bus.”
Ojeda’s twice-weekly program is a small yet creative push to get kids to read, and it has caught the eye of key state educators who cite his work as an example of how educating kids can extend beyond the classroom.
“He’s very involved in moving education forward,” said Calvine Rollins, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, of which Ojeda is a member. “He started this on his own with no school or grant money.”
Rollins said she’s unaware of other bus drivers who are doing what Ojeda does, but she hopes his work will encourage others to do the same.
“This is the first of many programs that we will begin to help set standards for student success,” Rollins said. “I’d like to see similar programs like Mr. Ojeda’s throughout the state.”
West Clayton PTA President Kenya Taylor said the program is helping kids meet the suggested 30-to-60-minutes daily reading time outside of school.
“This keeps them occupied and it’s a great use of their time,” Taylor said.
Last year, 34 percent of fourth-graders statewide were reading below the basic level as defined by the National Association of Educational Progress, according to the 2011 Nation’s Reading Report Card.
While there is no empirical data to measures how Ojeda’s program is working, positive indications are there.
“As a result of the reading program on his bus, students have won Accelerated Reading program awards,” Rollins said. “... The kids constantly report to him about their schoolwork. They feel they’ve accomplished great things because of the motivation he provides to them.”
Ojeda estimated 70 percent of the pre-kindergarten to fifth-graders who ride his bus have received some sort of recognition from the school. Over the years, he has handed out candy, pencils and writing tablets as rewards. Now it’s bookmarks.
“So they can save their place in the book,” he said.
Not only has it helped boost students’ interest in reading, it has also cut disruptive behavior dramatically.
“One thing I was able to measure was the behavior referrals,” said Lisa Sayles-Adams, who was principal at West Clayton Elementary last year but has since moved to Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary, also in College Park. “Discipline problems decreased immediately because the students were engaged in reading and they had something better to focus on and they were committed to reading.”
With each new driving assignment, Ojeda recruits parents by asking them to send a book with their children on Tuesdays and Thursdays. At a previous school, he asked students to write book reports about what they’d read.
His campaign isn’t limited to his bus, either. A Clayton bus driver for 14 years, Ojeda volunteers to read during the annual Read Across America Day. This year, he recruited 25 other bus drivers to do the same at 21 Clayton schools.
“He’s spot on the money,” said Clayton school district spokesman Doug Hendrix. “If everybody takes responsibility for educating each child, we’ll go a lot farther and get a lot stronger and the community will flourish.”
While Ojeda’s reading program is Tuesdays and Thursdays, he said the kids continually ask him, “ ‘Can we read every day?’ and I say, ‘You sure can.’ They look forward to it. They’re very encouraged by it.”
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